The Dramatic Rise & Fall of Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell, chief architect of the English Reformation, served as principal minister of Henry VIII from 1532 to 1540, the most tumultuous period in Henry's thirty-seven year reign. Many of the momentous events of the 1530s are attributed to Cromwell's agency: the Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries and the fall of Henry's second wife, the bewitching Anne Boleyn. Cromwell has been the subject of close and continuous attention for ...

Now a major TV series Winner of the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the the Orange Prize Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award`Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good' Daily Mail‘Our most brilliant English writer’ GuardianEngland, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need...

This work is strictly what its title page imports, a compilation. Fox's "Book of Martyrs" has been made the basis of this volume. Liberty, however, has been taken to abridge wherever it was thought necessary;—to alter the antiquated form of the phraseology; to introduce additional information; and to correct any inaccuracy respecting matters of fact, which had escaped the author of the original work, or which has been found erroneous by the investigation of modern research. The object of t...

Just over four hundred years ago, in 1610, Galileo published the Siderius nuncius, or Starry Messenger, a 'hurried little masterpiece' in John Heilbron's words. Presenting to the world his remarkable observations using the recently invented telescope - of the craters of the moon, and the satellites of Jupiter, observations that forced changes to perceptions of the perfection of the heavens and the centrality of the Earth - the appearance of the little book is regarded asone of the greatest...

This book offers a comprehensive thousand-year history of the land, people, society, culture and economy of Hungary, from its nebulous origins in the Ural Mountains to the elections of 1988. It tells above all the thrilling story of a people which became a great power in the region and then fought against - and was invaded by - Ottomans, Germans and Soviets. The Hungarian people preserved nevertheless a continuous individuality through its Ural-born language and a specifically Hungaro-Euro...

The Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo belonged, were a Florentine family of ancient burgher nobility. Their arms appear to have been originally "azure two bends or." To this coat was added "a label of four points gules inclosing three fleur-de-lys or." That augmentation, adopted from the shield of Charles of Anjou, occurs upon the scutcheons of many Guelf houses and cities. In the case of the Florentine Simoni, it may be ascribed to the period when Buonarrota di Simone Simoni held of...

England's response to the Revolt of the Netherlands (1568–1648) has been studied hitherto mainly in terms of government policy, yet the Dutch struggle with Habsburg Spain affected a much wider community than just the English political elite. It attracted attention across Britain and drew not just statesmen and diplomats but also soldiers, merchants, religious refugees, journalists, travellers and students into the conflict. Hugh Dunthorne draws on pamphlet literature to reveal how British ...

A fresh approach to the English civil war, War in England 1642-1649 focuses on answering a misleadingly simple question: what kind of war was it to live through? Eschewing descriptions of specific battles or analyses of political and religious developments, Barbara Donagan examines the 'texture' of war, addressing questions such as: what did Englishmen and women believe about war and know about its practice before 1642? What were the conditions in which a soldier fought - for exam...

Law, like religion, provided one of the principal discourses through which early-modern English people conceptualised the world in which they lived. Transcending traditional boundaries between social, legal and political history, this innovative and authoritative study examines the development of legal thought and practice from the later middle ages through to the outbreak of the English civil war, and explores the ways in which law mediated and constituted social and economic relationship...

John Calvin (1509–64) stands with Martin Luther (1483–1546) as the premier theologian of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. Calvin's thought spread throughout Europe to the New World and later throughout the whole world. His insights and influence continue to endure today, presenting a model of theological scholarship grounded in Scripture as well as providing nurture for Christian believers within churches across the globe. Dr Donald K. McKim gathers together an international a...

Marriage is often described as a melding of two people into one. But what—or who—must be lost, fragmented, or buried in that process? We have inherited a model of marriage so flawed, Frances E. Dolan contends, that its logical consequence is conflict.Dolan ranges over sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Puritan advice literature, sensational accounts of "true crime," and late twentieth-century marriage manuals and films about battered women who kill their abusers. She reads the inev...

A fresh introduction to—and bold new interpretation of—Machiavelli's PrinceIn Redeeming "The Prince, " one of the world's leading Machiavelli scholars puts forth a startling new interpretation of arguably the most influential but widely misunderstood book in the Western political tradition. Overturning popular misconceptions and challenging scholarly consensus, Maurizio Viroli also provides a fresh introduction to the work. Seen from this ...